Monday, March 17, 2014

A Thousand Splendid Ideas

Now I feel really arrogant and conceited, because my ideas are not a thousand nor are they splendid! But I think I am going somewhere with this!

start to 1/100 finish.

Originally I was thinking about comparing Victorian morals to Middle Eastern moral values today, but I knew that that wasn't exactly the most attention-grabbing paper topic. It wasn't until we started undergoing all the research for this paper that I came up with a more interesting paper topic that I would like to research--why people take male authors more seriously in feminist literature. When I started thinking about it, I noticed that there are many female authors that wrote under male pseudonyms (JK Rowling-her initialized name sounds androgynous, so really people don't know if she's male or female if they were just given "JK Rowling;" she also wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith when she published The Cuckoo's Calling, then there are the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, who wrote under Currer, Ellis and Acton. Also, we can't forget Mary Anne Evans writing under the name of George Elliot.) Although Khaled Hosseini is definitely a male author writing about female problems in society, I want to explore all angles of the male author writing about feminism, and why female writers can't write about feminism and still be taken seriously.

3 comments:

Nice change of topic! I think there's a lot to be said about the perceptions of male and female authors. Like you said, why do people take male authors more seriously than female authors? You could also think about the style of writing each is expected to have. For men, being demanding and aggressive is seen as powerful. If a women was demanding, she is criticized for being mean and uptight. Lots of inequality with male and female works in general.

I really like this new idea. I think you could write about a lot of things with this topic. There are so many ways that feminism affects our world and this is one of undervalued aspects (hope that makes sense). Anyway, very interesting.

I am sincerely anxious to read the final draft of this paper. I think it is a fascinating topic. Even more so because of the better understanding I have A Thousand Splendid Suns thanks to your explanation of it. I am curious to see how you will incorporate Alice's story into a feminist argument about women authors.